“We didn’t bring anyone with us,” Scout said. She didn’t make a very good liar.
Sebastian didn’t take the bait. “We did,” he said, then pointed behind him. Two teenagers stood at the edge of the bridge. One was Alex, a blonde who’d been with Sebastian when he hit me with firespell. She’d also attacked us when we went in to rescue Scout. She was not one of my favorite people.
The other was a really tall girl with dark skin and really short hair. She wore a T-shirt with what looked like a techie joke, skinny jeans, and a really big pair of mean-looking boots. She smiled. She was a pretty girl, but that didn’t mean I wanted to run into the business end of those boots anytime soon.
“None of them have magic,” I said, looking back at Sebastian.
His gaze shifted to me. “Not at the moment. And that’s why we’re here. What did you want to know?”
Scout got to the point. “We think your cousin is behind this, and we don’t think that comes as a surprise to you.”
Sebastian looked at me. “She didn’t tell me she was a member of the Dark Elite.”
“I know,” I said. “We saw you fighting outside the store.”
“Spying on me?” he asked.
“Honestly, yes,” I said. He’d seen us outside the store, so there was really no point in lying. “You hung up on me really fast when I asked about the fairy tale. I thought that was worth a little consideration. But that’s not the point—we actually saw Fayden do magic. She has firespell.”
“I know.”
“Tell us what you’ve seen,” I said.
He didn’t look at me, but his face was tense. He definitely knew something. “I can’t.”
“You can, and you have to,” I said. “The blackout is taking your magic, too. The only way we solve this problem is if we work together.”
“You want us to work together?” he asked, but there was a little bit of a smile in one corner of his mouth. I think he was actually enjoying this.
“It’s a limited-time offer,” I said. “We want things to get back to normal.” If chasing Reapers through tunnels beneath Chicago could ever be considered normal. “Start at the beginning. How did you find out she was involved?”
“When I realized she was the only one in the city who could actually do magic.”
“You might have mentioned that to us,” Scout grumbled.
“I didn’t know. Not until I saw her turn off a light. I think she forgot she was standing in front of me. And I wasn’t exactly thrilled. She played it off like it wasn’t any big thing. Like being the only person in town with magic wasn’t any big thing.”
“Why would she be doing this?”
He turned to face the river, putting his hands on the railing.
“I don’t know. I mean, she was a bully when we were growing up. Bossy. Manipulative. Always telling the younger kids what to do.”
“She mentioned something last night about a ‘new era,’” Scout said. “We know people are unhappy with Jeremiah right now, and we know the old Reapers are talking about a fairy tale involving someone named Campbell, like, overthrowing the government or something. Is it possible she’s working the blackout because she wants that kind of control? Because she wants to determine who gets to use magic and under what circumstances?”
“If that was true, why hasn’t she announced it?” I wondered. “I mean, it’s all well and good that she wants to be in charge. But at some point, she’d actually have to, like, be in charge.”
“Maybe she can’t,” Scout said. “Look, first the Adepts’ magic turned off, right? And then the Reapers’ magic turned off. As far as we know, she’s the only one in the city who has it. But if she’s going to control who gets to use it, she has to be able to give magic back to someone.”
“And maybe the spell isn’t working that way,” I finished. “She got the magic turned off, but she can’t figure out how to turn it back on again?”
“She ordered some things from Gaslight,” Sebastian said. “Maybe she was looking for a solution to that problem.”
“What did she order?” Scout asked.
“I don’t know. It was already bagged when we got there.”
“Had she been to Gaslight before?”
“Not with me,” Sebastian said. “But the girl at the counter knew her name.”
Scout looked at me, and I could already see the wheels turning. She wanted to find out what Fayden had bought, and that was how she was going to find out what kind of magic she was working—and how to stop it.
I looked at Sebastian. “She has firespell, right? Is turning off other people’s magic something you can do?”
“Not as far as I know. You?”
“Nope. So either she’s got some new version of firespell we don’t even know about, or she’s got friends helping her—donating their magic, maybe.” That kind of thing wasn’t impossible; I’d used my firespell to help Scout take out the imploded sanctuary.
“Do you know who she hangs out with?” Scout asked him.
“No. Like I said, as far as I knew, she was new to town. I didn’t lie to you,” Sebastian said, looking earnestly at me. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Before I could answer, Scout cut in. “You’re a Reaper,” she said. “Lying is just par for the course.”
“Not for me, it isn’t,” Sebastian said, his eyes going wide with anger.
“Oh, please. Reapers kill without a second thought.”
“Taking energy for food is one thing. No one has to die because of that. Killing someone out of revenge is something else completely.”
Scout made a sarcastic sound.
“I get it,” Sebastian said. “You don’t like me, and you don’t trust me.”
“Not even as far as I could throw you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“And you don’t know me, but that didn’t stop you from kidnapping me.”
“I didn’t kidnap you.”
“Your friends did,” she countered, “and that’s close enough for me. And it’s not like you stopped them, did you?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I helped Lily get you out.”
That wasn’t enough to sway her. “You’re a malicious little jerk who takes things that don’t belong to him.”